Mark9

Back before it got raped by fastrack, stealth and storm surge, Tidal Wave had a much longer queue then present. It's also perfectly understandably for Tidal Wave to have a three hour queue in 2002.

You clearly didn't find your laughing place

Did someone say EURO-RAVE?

It's okay, the project isn't cancelled just because the wing-rider track wasn't heading to Chertsey..

There is so much crap in this topic now it's unreal. Where are people coming from when they post this stuff. Firstly:-
All the ground work has been done in the last 30 years and has NOTHING to do with Merlin. From John Broome adding a double looping rollercoaster in 1980 to Tussauds throwing in Europes first inverted rollercoaster. Merlin have added pirates, a random cuckoo area and a family rollercoaster with bells and whistles. Merlin, if anything, are sucking off Alton's reputation, and sucking it dry.I mean honestly. Are you for real? Air, to this day remains one of the most popular rollercoasters the UK has ever seen. 10 seasons on it will have the busiest queues of any ride on park despite its large throughput. Yeah, so what enthusiasts don't rave about it? The public love it. And what, Thorpe throw coaster after coaster after coaster at their park and somehow they are better. Quantity isn't everything and Inferno, Stealth and Colossus can't hold a candle to Nemesis, Oblivion and Air in terms of ride quality. Sheepie, once again hits the nail right on the head. Alton Towers, if anything, have been incredibly daring by making their new rollecoaster a family friendly attraction. It's only the advertising that has let the ride down. Family parks will have always have the edge on thrill parks because, to put it simply, rides are there to be enjoyed not just to always scare you silly.

See, this annoys me. Realistically a brand new rollercoaster is going to last another 20 years and will make back its return within the first few seasons. Look at rides like Oblivion, 13 years on and it's still the ride with the most merchandise in Alton's shops. Same with Air, same with Stealth.I know there's a fine balance between getting a good ride out there and having the budget to do it, but when it all said and done, these aren't little things that will last a month, they are million pound experiences which will be seeing the park through at least two decades. Sometimes parks attitudes astound me.

See, this annoys me. Realistically a brand new rollercoaster is going to last another 20 years and will make back its return within the first few seasons. Look at rides like Oblivion, 13 years on and it's still the ride with the most merchandise in Alton's shops. Same with Air, same with Stealth.I know there's a fine balance between getting a good ride out there and having the budget to do it, but when it all said and done, these aren't little things that will last a month, they are million pound experiences which will be seeing the park through at least two decades. Sometimes parks attitudes astound me.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARK9!

KrakeSo the newest addition naturally had the longest queue (90 minutes), and the queue is very boring, with just a view of the brake run, and neither is it well designed, with many hidden cattlepens and lack of shade... Did they use Thorpe’s ideas of queues?Eventually we reached the bag drop area, where you get lanyards (a weird idea), and you eventually head into one of the most disorganised stations I’ve ever encountered...Firstly, it’s compact, with very little room to breathe at the bottom of the staircase (especially with Q-Bot merge coming in at the same point), but the main problem is that every single person is waiting for the front row... Which causes a bottleneck of people waiting for it, then no-one heading into the other two rows... Why the hell they don’t have a member of staff allocating seats is beyond me, especially when you are used to decent German efficiency... It’s actually terrible and I don’t think even one of the UK parks would allow it...Since we couldn’t be arsed, we headed straight into the empty back row on the left hand edge, and after the incredibly quick lift hill and turn, we found ourselves semi-cresting the drop (a common problem with 3 car Dive Machines), and after 3 seconds, the rather forceful descent happened past the mouth of the Kraken before we hit the splash zone... Which resulted in me getting lots of water down my back due to my seating position, which was beautiful... Then the loop happened followed by the floaty airtime hill and we hit the brakes...Now Krake is a hit... Plain and simple, enthusiasts may not like it, but the Germans LOVE it, and that’s not an understatement... Everyone in the area was watching or riding it, and they were all so excited about it... Heide have a real gem on their hands, but was it as good as Blivvy?No... It definitely isn’t, but it is still a really good coaster in my view, it felt more forceful than SheiKra and didn’t outstay it’s welcome in a similar way of Oblivion... It is also nicely spectator orientated with the splash and drop being visible from all around the lake area... Unfortunately the Krake mouth does look rather pathetic in its current position, and hopefully they do fix that, because I reckon this ride would gain an extra point or two if that happened...8/10 This was the result of my sitting in the back edge... Cannot stress how nice it was in the heat... After Krake, it was certainly time for some lunch, so as we walked towards an Information Centre in the hope of finding out when the park closed (which didn’t work, some poor organisation again), we passed a small BBQ area, which had epic Bratwurst... Caption Comp much?After lunch, more meandering followed, looking at the general niceness this park had in places... And the fact that Germans can be trusted not to try and drown themselves... Vekoma corner is not my favourite place...With more long queues around the park, we decided that more Intamin would happen, so we hit up...ScreamThis is their noisy Gyro Drop Tower with awesome soundtrack that Det stole a few years back... With the queue snaking around the base of the ride as well, it provided some amusing times with the reactions of people coming down off the very tall drop... At one point the staff had rage towards silly guests who HAD to sit together... I do dislike people like that, cos when you’re on the ride it won’t make a bloody difference if you’re together or not... Gah...Anyways, we got on, and after the long rotating ascent, the spinning stopped, and the drop began...And kept going...And still kept going...It was just so constant... It kinda got boring after a while because you just hit terminal velocity and it seemed to last about 3/4 of the way down... Give me Det (or Extremis) anyday of the week in that regard...Still, another solid ride...7/10 After again ignoring the Vekomas, we headed towards their Aztec show (which in hindsight, was a mistake), which lacked ANY shade at all... I’m all for park shows, but they need shade/shelter to make it actually enjoyable... It was a pretty decent show with some random stunts and clever ideas, but the unbearable heat of DOOM didn’t help...After the show, we headed towards the entrance to investigate shop based times, and I brought a Krake hat (too late to prevent anything though) before it was time for some credit whoring...IndyblitzCha-Ching, it’s a kiddie credit, and not a very good one at that... Regardless, we went on it and then straight away ran off to avoid any strange looks...It’s not even greatly themed tbh... And it’s just... bland... I dunno... Just a bit blergh about the whole ride... Oh wells...5/10 So after this, it was time for a Vekoma, this one was...Big LoopOh boy... This needs retracking/removal... This was rough... Corkscrew was smoother, and now one of it’s trains is on it... Bugger...Yeah as soon as you hit the loops that was it, rough, rough, rough... Not a lot else to say about it really aside from OW...5/10 After that we elected to queue again for Krake to finish off the day... Still good but lack of organisation... We then returned to the room when the sunstroke finally hit and completely killed me... Urgh... The lack of shade was not a good thing throughout the park... It was so weird in that respect because it was very much a mis-mash of all our Tussauds parks... It had a bit of each with both pros and cons...Final part of Heide and the trip is next...

Oh Sweeet Jesus....Why are we stuck with such tripe! It's so frustrating what they are doing over-seas and we get Storm Surge and Thirteen. ARGHHHH

Mark9's Alton Towers Birthday Weekend CelebrationFriday 10thHeaded up to Towers on Friday 10th. Me and Ian met up with Mark, Chris, Alex and Sophie in Tesco, wahey! Went for noms at a pub nearby, then headed off to Splash Landings hotel I absolutely love it there, the theming, music, smells...everything! Such a brilliant atmosphere! They now have a giant deck chair by the windows and there was a character there with some children. The simple things like that are one of the many reasons I love Alton so much!We did think about swimming but it was too late obviously, and not everyone had their swimming stuff.Checked into our rooms, and discovered we had a lovely view of the outside pools, mmm! Chilled, had drinks, played Top Trumps...headed down to the awesome bar...had some gorrrgeous cocktails! I think we would all recommend the Woo Woo! As for the blue vodka slushy thing...it was tasty (from what I can remember!) but pretty strong. Needless to say, drunk times! Saturday 11thChecked out of the hotel, sad times. Headed for the monorail, to discover a never ending queue, so we walked to the park.Ride count:Oblivion, a very refreshing start to the day and a good wake-up for a hangover! I never get bored of it, gotta love that drop!Headed to the Flume for a more relaxing start to the day, not much of a queue. Not much to say about the ride really, apart from numerous attempts to take photos due to trees constantly getting in the way! And I got very wet somehow!Next up was Congo, as always a great laugh and again, got soaked. Got a good on ride photo!It was then time for RMT, another great ride for interaction, love the tunnel where you go past Congo! I was rather amused by a man infront of us who looked like Rolf Harris And turning around onride to look at him and watch his hair go flying...Now it was time for NEMESIIIIIS! Great ride as always, queue was about 30 mins. And this time I didn't actually grey out! I actually found it quite bumpy/head-banging, but it didn't give me a hurrendous headache or make me feel like I was going to have permanent brain damage *cough*SAW*cough* so it's al good =)Next it was time for Air, and for the first time in my experiences there, it had the extensions open! I don't know what one is the first, second etc, but the one that goes left and up/down hill was open when we joined, then they opened another extension! It wasn't too bad though, I felt quite chilled in the queueline. The dispatching etc in both stations was actually good and fast too, woo! Good ride on it, although my hair got in my face like it always does! The photo was just great, I looked like Cousin It!Then on the way to Pizza Pasta we did Duel! Yaaay! Definitely in my top 3 of favourite Alton rides. Theming, music, everything. And yes, I jumped at those men again! I focused more on the theming for a change and I just love it! Nommed at Pizza Pasta, then let our food go down in the long Th13teen queue. What can I say about the ride? Hmmm...it's just...yeah. It's aimed at families I know, but there's just something about it which is just...lol!W were going to do RITA but there was a huuuuuge queue so we headed to Oblivion, thinking of coming back to it, but by the time we'd done Oblivion it was getting late and we were getting tired.So yeah, last ride was Oblivion, good fun and a great way to end a brilliant day. Looked at the walkabout photo that was taken in the morning, bought them, went to Towers Trading - shopping time! I love Alton and really wanted a good browse at the merchandise, and to treat myself. They have some great stuff in there, really love how the merchandise is improving across Merlin parks this year. I won't go on too long but I'm sure you will all see for yourselves when you go, it really is a great shop!But...wow, it was HECTIC! That was the only negative of my day, the packed shop. People don't look where they're going either or don't move when you politely ask them, grr!Anyway, after much browsing, grr-ing, pushing and shoving, being pushed and shoved, I bought...Oblivion BearOblivion Pen.Alton Towers keyring setAlton Towers pin badgeOblivion hoodyAlton Towers snow globe.Snow globe:All I'll say is got to love Annual Pass discount!Headed to the monorail, there was a 15-20 minute queue but none of us had the energy to walk and our feet were hurting. I got my wish; we had the Splash Landings train. Had a giggle at the voice over man and his amazing Caribbean accent!Chilled at the Alton Towers Hotel bar, a well-needed sit down! Then the entertainment started...hmm. It's great they do it of course, but it was awkward as it wasn't busy and we just wanted to relax! Headed off to get noms, with a stop to Tesco first, for snacks. Ian went and got painkillers and drove to Wetherspoons as he wasn't up to walking. Alex had issues with the self serve checkout, then Chris had fun with the recycling machine, which made some interesting noises!Went to Spoons, love the cheap food there! Had spicy noodles which were yummy and a glass of wine, mwuhaha.Then it was dessert time. Well, when Ian earlier on left Tescos and didn't want to walk...he was actually buying a surprise birthday cake for the Lord of the Nines and arranging with Spoons for them to bring it out with ice cream! How nice! The staff were great about it all too.Needless to say, we were all stuffed after all that food! Headed off to Travelodge, checked in, chilled out, had some drinks and played Disney Monopoly. Fun times!Sunday 12thAfter some delay with people getting ready on time, we FINALLY left for our McDonalds breakfast. The only problem? It was raining. And it was horrible, non-stop rain. So unfortunately, we decided against a second day at Towers. Which I agree with as it is horrible, but it's a shame too, it's nice to get to do 2 days on park.Had a good journey home, although I didn't want to leave!Thank you to Ian for picking me up and Mark for dropping me off home ;)Infact thanks to everyone for such a fun weekend! Love you all <3

Day 4Our last day in GermanyAfter breakfast we headed into the park for our full 30 minutes of ERT, first up again was Blue Fire. Two very quick rides on Blue Fire’s front row and then we went back to the Spanish area to queue up for Atlantica for when it opened at 9am. EP’s Atlantica and Poseidon were the first water coasters we had ever ridden on and we loved them both (although I think we enjoyed Poseidon slightly more). As we were in the first boat of the morning we didn’t seem to get too wet, maybe the water pool was too calm when we hit it, and since there was no queue in the station the ride ops asked if we all wanted to go round again, of course we did! And we did get quite wet on that second go. This turned out to be a bit of a forecast for the rest of the day, it was now time for some serious re-rides!3rd Day on park ride count:Alpine Coaster x4Swiss Bob Run x3Ghost Castle x3Fjord Rafting x2Blue Fire x2Silver Star x2Atlantica x2Poseidon x2Eurosat x2Pirates in Batavia x2Atlantis Adventure x2Piccolo Mondo x2ColumbusTirol Log FlumeWorld of DiamondsCrazy TaxiUniverse of EnergyElf RideEuro TowerSleigh Ride “Snowflake”The Flight of IkarusPegasusCassandra’s CurseEP – ExpressHistorama MonorailAnd for lunch we made a return trip to FoodLoop and the food was just as good as the first visit, however the experience wasn’t quite as exciting after having sat at the looping table but it was still great fun.Leaving the park at 5pm we collected our bags from the hotel and got our transfer back to Basel to start our trip back to Gatwick. It was whilst we were at the airport we saw this amazing pinball machine. “Are you about to board a plane? Maybe you are a bit nervous about your flight? What better time to play a game themed around terrorism!”...As many people have said on this forum before, there is just so much to say about Europa Park that it would take you a very long time to cover it all. Even after writing this ‘full’ report of our trip most of the rides have only been mentioned by name. So to try and rectify this here is some information about our favourite rides at the park.Best Family CoasterHelen: Swiss Bob RunPhill: Swiss Bob Run although it is a close one between this and the Alpine Coaster. Swiss Bob Run was our first Bobsled coaster and we really enjoyed it. It was also fun watching the expressions on some of the other riders faces when they arrived back at the station, especially when you could see how really uncomfortable some guys were when they were sharing seats with their mates.Best Thrill CoasterHelen: EurosatPhill: Silver Star, despite reading bad things about it online it was my first hyper coaster and I loved it, especially the first drop. The intense screaming from some of the riders seemed really unnecessary but quite funny. Eurosat was a great space themed coaster that reminded us of WDW's Space Mountain if it had dropped some E's at a European rave! It was amazing, if a little rough in places. Best Dark RideHelen: Pirates in Batavia and Ghost Castle, I can’t choose between those two.Phill: This park is full of great Dark Rides and that makes it very hard to choose but I think because it is so similar to one of my favourite rides from my childhood (Phantom Fantasia/Wicked Witches Haunt) I would have to say Ghost Castle. But Atlantis Adventure is great too! I apologise for the photo overload from Ghost Castle but I really loved this ride! With this guy at the entrance that spits/sneezes at people as they walk past and this creepy picture in the queue line, one thing is certain this is no Haunted Mansion! A skull chandelier in one of the queue line rooms.Entering this station and seeing the old clamshell ride cars it was almost like the 2000 Thorpe Park fire had never happened...Singing in German these guys were definitely more creepy than the Grim Grinning originals. Best Water RideHelen: Fjord RaftingPhill: Atlantica almost wins just for it’s great use of “He’s a Pirate” from Pirates of the Caribbean, that was really cool. But I think I would have to go for Poseidon for its great theming at the start and also that fantastic second drop. But Fjord Rafting is a great example of how to make a river rapids ride, the best I have ridden in Europe so far. The first day we rode Fjord Rafting the smoke machines in the tunnel were not working so we did not really understand the point of the fire effect in there. However re-riding it a couple of days later it all made sense and we wished Thorpe Park would do something like that with their tunnel. Random Trip AwardsThe ride that made us feel most hungry: Piccolo Pizza... I mean Piccolo Mondo. Mostly a small dark ride advert for the Italian Restaurant next door, Pizza and Ice Cream... I wish the character on the back of the boats/ride cars had been used more though.Most random piece of merchandise bought:A small bottle of the essence they fill the Magic World of Diamonds walk through attraction with, which you also smell every time you go on the Tirol Log Flume or the Alpine Coaster. Now our house smells like Europa Park. In summary we had an amazing time at the park and can’t wait to return. We will definitely be recommending Europa Park to all our friends and family. Thanks for reading our trip report, we leave you with a video we have quickly edited together from some clips we filmed on our trip. Thanks Phill and Helen.

I feel a bit insulted by this as you seem to be under the impression that I resent talented people. I don't, I resent the way X Factor is shoved down my throat every winter with what seems the bickering between the judges more important then whats going on, on stage.At the end of the day, yeah it probably is hard to get into the music industry. But if you really are talented then you either go through the proper way, working hard and breaking through or you become a one hit wonder and then forgotten about. Some kind of stardom that is..

Definitely one of the best posts ever made on this forum...

I'm going to reply in three parts here.- Point 1, basically, I know that. However the show is made up of 95% talentless idiots who want 5 minutes of fame, not an interest in the music industry.- Point 2. So if you don't have modern tastes you won't win. How utterly ridiculous is that. Music is more then just the last two months.- Point 3. You list the successful two winners and two others from the last series. What about Steve Brockenstein, Shane Ward, Leon Jackson, Joe McElderry who have dissappeared of the face of the earth.- Point 4. Nice blanket statement there except not everones dream is in the entertainment industry, it's to get money and be adored. Not the same thing at all.

I'm going to reply in three parts here.- Point 1, basically, I know that. However the show is made up of 95% talentless idiots who want 5 minutes of fame, not an interest in the music industry.- Point 2. So if you don't have modern tastes you won't win. How utterly ridiculous is that. Music is more then just the last two months.- Point 3. You list the successful two winners and two others from the last series. What about Steve Brockenstein, Shane Ward, Leon Jackson, Joe McElderry who have dissappeared of the face of the earth.- Point 4. Nice blanket statement there except not everones dream is in the entertainment industry, it's to get money and be adored. Not the same thing at all.

I'm going to reply in three parts here.- Point 1, basically, I know that. However the show is made up of 95% talentless idiots who want 5 minutes of fame, not an interest in the music industry.- Point 2. So if you don't have modern tastes you won't win. How utterly ridiculous is that. Music is more then just the last two months.- Point 3. You list the successful two winners and two others from the last series. What about Steve Brockenstein, Shane Ward, Leon Jackson, Joe McElderry who have dissappeared of the face of the earth.- Point 4. Nice blanket statement there except not everones dream is in the entertainment industry, it's to get money and be adored. Not the same thing at all.

I really, really hate the X Factor. Get off my TV screen you talentless harpies.

I really, really hate the X Factor. Get off my TV screen you talentless harpies.

It's for the same reason that people buy Vauxhalls and Fords instead of BMW's and Audis. B&M's are premium range products and what you lose in money, you gain in quality. Colossus has had restraint changes, is considered rough and pops bolts left right and centre.Inferno runs and rarely has technical faults.The example you use of Maverick, that ride was so EXTREME, the inline it originally had was destroying track and train and had to be removed for an S-curve. (Colossus cost 10 million)

See for me, Inferno benefits from the music playing only at certain moments, not all the time. It's like modern day TV, everything is drenched in music trying to tell you what emotion you need to have. Inferno in it's first few years had the balance just right as the theme went and you felt the rumble off the train travelling below you. Now it's just another Thorpe ride with a soundtrack.

See for me, Inferno benefits from the music playing only at certain moments, not all the time. It's like modern day TV, everything is drenched in music trying to tell you what emotion you need to have. Inferno in it's first few years had the balance just right as the theme went and you felt the rumble off the train travelling below you. Now it's just another Thorpe ride with a soundtrack.

Last month my Wife and I took a four day trip to Europa Park, Rust in Germany. It was our first time to the park, to Germany and this is my first ever trip report so please be kind To start off I thought I would quickly summarize our trip in numbers.Days away: 4 Days, 3 NightsDays in Park: 3 DaysNew Rides & Attractions Ridden: 38Shows seen: 3 ShowsHighest number of re-rides: 8 rides on Schweizer Bobbahn (Swiss Bob Run) coaster over the 3 daysTotal number of photos taken: 653Day OneThe JourneyWhen we first started planning the trip we realised that Europa Park did not seem to be the easiest of places to get to if you didn’t already know where you were going. Thanks to advice on this and other forums though, this task was not as bad as it first seemed. In the end we flew with Easyjet from Gatwick to Basel Mulhouse Freiburg (also known as EuroAirport). This airport is one of the only airports in the world operated by two countries, in this case the airport has been built in France but the airport has both French and Swiss sectors. We were staying at the Hotel Colosseo on the Europa Park resort so we decided to arrange a shuttle service through the hotel. The airport was about an hour away from the resort and the transfer cost €130 each way, the vehicles can seat up to 8 passengers so if you were going as a larger group the cost per head would make this even more economical, for the two of us it worked out around the same cost as hiring a car to only make the same two journeys so we opted for the easier option and let someone else do the driving. We were landing in the Swiss sector and expected to be collected for the Swiss arrivals hall, however after not being able to find our driver we found out from a very helpful taxi driver that apparently you cannot get to Germany from the Swiss sector and that we would have to go to the French sector. One quick trip in a nearby lift up to the next level, a short walk to get into the French sector and another lift back down to French arrivals we found our driver and she helped us out to the car with our bags. We were very impressed with our driver, she was dressed in smart Europa Park uniform, made us feel very welcome and chatted to us in English on our way to the park. These were our first view of the park and our hotel from the transfer car.After checking in we went on a walk around the hotel resort grounds, discovering many of the restaurants on the way. We eventually ended up back at the courtyard cafe area at the Hotel Colosseo with our Merlin Top Trumps and a pack of German coaster Top Trumps we had bought from the hotel gift shop. After many games, drinks and cheese & salami toasted sandwiches we went back to reception to get our room keys. Our room was on the third floor of this beautifully themed hotel, and we were pleasantly surprised that it was as nice and quiet inside the room despite being an on resort hotel.That evening we checked out the Resort’s many restaurants before deciding to eat at Restaurant Don Quichotte. We were feeling rather hungry from all our travelling and I am quite a fussy eater so we decided to go for the Don Quichottes family pan, which seemed to have a taste of nearly everything off the menu. According to the menu this meal is intended for 2 adults and 2 children and we received some slightly strange looks from the waiting staff as they delivered it over to our table of two. What followed was a “Man v Food” feast of epic proportions, the likes of which we had never attempted before. The meal arrived on a two-tier stand packed full of food, including: 2 beef steaks, 2 pork steaks, 4 chicken skewers, 2 beef skewers, 4 grilled chorizo sausages, 4 chicken drumsticks, 2 turkey piccatas, served with Andalusian vegetables, chips, wrinkled potatoes and pasta paella. Needless to say the dish did beat us in the end but we definitely gave it our all and think that for the amount of good, quality food you get it is definitely worth the €49.50 price. However you just might not fancy eating too much meat for the next week.Every night the circular fountains in the centre of the hotels courtyard would come alive with specially designed shows set to music. During the day and in between the shows some parents allowed their children to run through the middle of these fountains but when the shows started you saw some of them grab a hold of their kids, which was definitely understandable as part of shows involved the middle fountain jet shooting up over 6 stories high. There was always a nice atmosphere around the hotel and it was never really busy while we were there.Day 2 to follow soon...

Just passed his driving test.

DanH